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air, earth and water. The beginning of the Japanese year falls about the fifth of February. They have a leap-year every other or third year, or seven in nineteen years. The necessity for this arises from their beginning a new year from the new moon next to the 5th of February.
(Chapter 3.)—The emperor Synmu is said to have done very much for his country and to have reigned during 79 years. He was succeeded by his son Sui Sei B. C. 580. In the 30th year of this monarch’s reign was born in China the illustrious philosopher Koosi, or Cumfufu, known to us as Confucius. Then follow in succession the names and reigns and principle deeds of 114 ecclesiastical emperors, down to the Mikado who succeeded to the throne in the year 1687, and who occupied it at the time of Dr. Kaempfer’s residence in Japan. The most noteworthy events of each year are likewise chronicled, Dr. Kaempfer being indebted for his information to Japanese historians whose names he gives. (p. 200).
The 6th chapter of the 2nd Book is devoted to the series of Crown-Generals, or, as Dr. Kaempfer likewise calls them, Secular Monarchs, of Japan, whose succession it is to be remembered was co-existent with a portion of the succession of the long line of Mikados, Yoritomo, the first Crown-General, having been born during the reign of the 76th Dairi in the year of Christ 1154. Of these latter monarchs—for Monarchs or Sole Governors they were in the true sense of the word—a series of thirty-six is named, beginning whith Yoritomo and coming down to Tsinajosiko who filled the Shogun’s throne in 1692 at the time of Dr. Kaempfer’s residence in Japan. Of these the most remarkable seems to have been Taiko Sama, originally a peasant’s son and in his younger years a nobleman’s domestic servant. Having become Shogun he reduced under his power all of the provinces of Japan which were until then governed by independent princes. He thus, properly speaking, became the first secular monarch of all Japan. On his death he was deified. With
